Robert Solotaire (1930-2008)

One of Maine’s finest artists, Robert Solotaire was born in Manhattan and spent his youth in one of the busiest urban settings imaginable, Times Square, where his father’s business was located. Perhaps this helps to explain his later aesthetic involvement with the urban landscape, an interest that he pursued throughout his life, in cities such as New York City, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Weirton, West Virginia.

The intricate geometry of industrial installation, either by itself as an exercise in linear perspective, such as 138th Street Bridge V; or industrial commonplaces set within a broader landscape setting such as York Street, were p...